ALFA: Antiterror is a turn based tactical combat simulator that lets the
player control Russia's special operations force through a four episode campaign
based on the real life experiences of former Alfa members. Here's the second part
of an exclusive developer diary from Alfa Antiterror project producerYaroslav
Astakhov!
Many people probably have pretty rough idea about the development process of
any game. Meanwhile it is complicated process indeed. So the concept is chosen,
the legend and plot are clear. What next? Then follows quite arduous and
difficult development stage as information and materials gaining. This part of
our development dairies will lift the veil of secrecy and tell you about the
process of sources gaining for the "Alfa: Antiterror" project.

Characters:
The main part of most games is characters. That's why we placed particular
emphasis to the development of this part of the gameplay. Firstly we tried to
find any information in the Internet meticulously examining various sources and
web-sites. But it didn't work unfortunately.
Then we applied to the Federal Security Service (FSB) Operation Center in
order to get some information and materials, concerning the equipment, arming
and other features of the Special Task Force members. In short, we visited their
military unit and made lots of photographs and pictures (of course under
incessant control!), which helped us while creating characters. Besides we
collected an extensive literature on military subjects, which served us as a
ground for creating models.
It's worth mentioning the way characters' heads were drawn. At first we used
already finished renders to make portraits; then we tried to use our own
pictures and snap-shots - different photos of our friends and relatives, student
and army photos etc. Yeah, it was ingenuous indeed!
Afterwards we've obtained the book about chekists (i.e. special agents) with a
lot of illustrations and photographs, which we used for drawing portraits. But
this variant was rejected as well.
So actually the only reliable source was Federal Security Service (FSB)
Operation Center, and owing to it we've finally made excellent portraits with
maximum correspondence to originals!
As for characters' uniform and various equipment - all these items were
accurately made with the use of high-quality pictures and photographs from
various subject encyclopedias and archives.
According to the information from different sources, every soldier in the
game has an assigned position (assaulter, sniper and grenadier). The player will
then grow in rank and be rewarded depending on their participation in the
operations. After each mission is completed, the player gets command points,
which can be used both for training our subordinates and improving their skills
or awarding anybody new ranks.
Moreover, as it's in real life, each soldier in the game has its own
individual character, which defines his behavior on the battlefield and the way
he interacts with a team.
Weapons:
Since the game covers rather long period of time, the weapons, which are
available to the player, will change depending on the period of time. All the
weapons were made using the information, photographs and pictures from subject
encyclopedias as well. A great deal of materials was provided by the very
Operation Center of FSB, which consulted our team about characters.
They provided us with a special literature, concerning pictures and the
information about weapons' description, characteristics and other details.
According to these materials we made high-quality detailed textures of weapon
samples, which number more than 100 types in the game (to be precise - 70 base
models plus variations).
Among these weapons there are standard weapons that are used by the army and
by internal Russian forces. There will also be some special weapons that are
available for Special Forces only. The types of weapons that a player can expect
to see in the game are as follows: pistols, sub-machineguns, assault rifles,
sniper rifles, machineguns and grenade launchers - not to mention a variety of
hand grenades.
There will also be samples of other manufacturers in the game (H&K, Beretta,
Glock, FN, Colt, Steyr, S&W others). Also the game offers a number of special
tools and instruments used by special task forces.
Equipment:
As for equipment samples creation - it was far easier! Actually we bought
model kits and scanned them. In accordance to these models we made highly
detailed textures. Afterwards, we just used photographs (photos of different
elements of technical equipment and its various perspectives) to make necessary
samples.
All dimensions and characteristics of equipment samples were taken from
reference sources, so you can expect maximum reliability in the game.
Besides our project manager frequently visited the exercise center and training
grounds of "ALFA" group in order to have first-hand knowledge of "ALFA" group
reality.
related links:
Movie Trailer (39MB),
Development
Diary #1,
Alfa
Antiterror Q&A,
Game Factory
Interactive (East European publisher)